In my last post, I mentioned that one element of the still life I am working on in my teacher’s studio has to come home with me each week. I can’t leave the poinsettia because the studio cats might be tempted to nibble on this toxic plant. So the potted poinsettia gets tucked up in a brown paper bag each week and sits in the passenger seat while I drive home. So far the cold weather has not bothered it. It is so cold in my home studio that the plant is now on my dining room table where it’s nice and warm for this tropical denizen and also warm enough for me to draw it in my sketchbook today without freezing my hands. I sketched the plant loosely in pencil, then inked it in black. I erased the pencil marks, then added the color with a new set of watercolor markers that my daughter gave me for Christmas. The colors are vivid. The brand is ‘Primrosia.’
When I started drawing and writing in my ‘Pandemic sketchbook’ in early Spring at the beginning of the stay-at-home advisory, I might have thought that the pandemic would end before I ran out of blank pages. Sadly, that is not the case. The virus continues to burn through all the dry tinder of non-immune populations worldwide.
I have three pages to go in my sketchbook and a new, blank one waiting to be filled. The latest page is of tumbling leaves falling downward. I wet the paper with a natural sponge, then painted and splattered fall colors onto the damp page. When dry, I drew the leaves. Using dried leaves I had pressed in a book as templates, I traced around them, adding the veins and details later. I’m hoping that by next Spring, when I have filled up Volume 2 of my Pandemic Sketchbook, we have an effective, widely distributed vaccine and the Pandemic is subsiding.
The first watercolor (pictured below) was painted in my Pandemic Sketchbook starting with a loose, wet on wet technique with some dry brush details added later. (Note to impatient people: I use a hair dryer to speed up the drying time so I can add the next layer of color sooner rather than waiting.) The sketchbook paper is intended for dry media and not really thick enough for watercolor as it tends to buckle. Despite that, the paper can handle a pencil sketch with a light watercolor wash, if not overworked. The intense red and green colors of the peppers are much better in this painting than in the next version of the still life, but I don’t remember exactly how I blended those colors to get that intensity (or ‘high chroma’/‘saturation’.) I always use the same limited watercolor palette so that was not the variable. Probably using less water on my brush and on the mixing tray before applying the paint to the paper made the hues more intense. I’ll have to remember this…
Peppers and White Pumpkin, watercolor
The second watercolor (below) was painted on heavier watercolor paper starting with wet on wet then adding details with watercolor pencils later. The objects have a more hard-edged style than the first painting which tends to make them look a bit flat. I added highlights by trying to leave white paper, then by removing (picking up) pigment with a wet brush, and finally by adding white gouache which sadly looks a bit chalky. Another problem is the shadow on the left side of the pumpkin which looks like a sunken bruise. I might go back to soften the hard edges by picking up some pigment and fix the ‘bruise’ perhaps by continuing the indentation ‘line’ of the pumpkin and blending out the shadow. I’m at the point where I am a bit tired of painting this still life though, so I’ll let it rest for a while. The 140 lb watercolor paper can take a lot more abuse and redos than the 60 lb sketchbook paper so I can’t use material failure as an excuse to stop working on this version of the still life.
Peppers and Pumpkin, watercolor
So what have I learned by painting the same still life twice? The quality and weight of paper definitely affects the outcome. Hard edges fight with the illusion of volume, as my teacher pointed out when she saw my preliminary posts on Instagram. White highlights are best if you don’t paint over that lightest spot in the first place. Maybe I should get some masking fluid? I still struggle with wet on wet followed by a dry brush for details because the dry brush details sometimes obliterate the spontaneity of the wet technique. I should make a color chart to practice getting the right intensity of color and how to mix my colors and so on. You can see my small palette in the phot so a color chart would be manageable. And finally, draping a piece of white sheet over my drafting lamp makes a surprisingly nice still life backdrop!
During the first three months of staying at home, I drew in my sketchbook almost daily, but then I slowed down. To break through the ‘artist’s block,’ I recently made some thumbnail sketches of what’s blooming now in my garden. The small format is very easy and liberating and got me back to the drawing board.
Four color sketches of what was blooming in May and June during our strict Stay at Home phase in the New York City metropolitan area. I bring back leaves and blooms from my daily walks, or from my garden, to draw in my studio. These were sketched in pencil, then watercolor or watercolor pencil added next, and sometimes they were inked as the last step. I love seeing video demonstrations of nature journalists sketching outside with their portable camp stools and tiny sketching kits, but the comfort of my small indoor studio is so tempting. Now that the sticky, hot northeastern USA summer is here, my air conditioner is also very tempting. Maybe plain air painting is in my future, but not the near future, I suspect.
Anne deFuria 